The treatment of illness often requires ingesting numerous pharmaceutical compositions. The treatment of pain particularly requires a level of active ingredients in a patient's bloodstream of sufficient concentration to maintain an analgesic or anti-inflammatory effect. To accomplish this, a patient must ingest a plurality of pills, capsules or the like, several times a day. This regimen is often difficult to maintain, given that the active ingredients, such as Acetylsalicylic acid and triethanolamine salicylate, or NSAIDs such as ibuprofen, naprosyn, and the like are associated with gastric irritation. While such irritation may only result in chronic stomach upset, in some cases this can quickly manifest itself in spontaneous gastric bleeding, which can be life threatening.
An additional problem associated with oral medications, is that the concentration levels which must be achieved in the bloodstream must be significant in order to effectively treat distal areas of pain or inflammation. These levels are often much higher than would be necessary if it were possible to more accurately target the particular site of pain or injury. Thus there exists a need for a transdermal analgesic formulation which is capable of distal application and which has the ability to alleviate pain and inflammation in a local fashion.